


A Legacy of Self-Made Men

by Dynapink



Category: The High Chaparral
Genre: Father-Son Relationship, Friendship, Gen, Male Friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-22
Updated: 2013-12-22
Packaged: 2018-01-05 13:14:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,571
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1094278
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dynapink/pseuds/Dynapink
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"We are children to them. They are GIANTS."</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Legacy of Self-Made Men

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Qwilleran](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Qwilleran/gifts).



Buck stretched out with his feet against the fireplace and his head resting on a chair, a cigar in one hand and a glass of Don Sebastian’s expensive brandy in the other.

“Y’know, Mano,” he said, “this is the life. A body could get used to this.”

His best friend lay on the rug nearby, with his own glass of brandy held loosely on top of his stomach. He considered Buck’s words seriously. “I suppose,” he said finally. “Easy to get used to a rich man’s life when you don’t have a rich man’s responsibilities. And even then it’s easy to grow tired of it.”

Don Sebastian came into the room just in time to hear his son’s pronouncement. In a tone of considerable annoyance, he said, “Bah! What do you, my worthless son, know of the responsibilities of a rich man? Or any man, come to that? Only that you have spent your entire life avoiding them.”

Manolito raised his glass in a mocking toast. “Exactly, Papá. And I intend to continue spending my life running from them until they catch up with me. Until that day, I will be free and I will relish that freedom.”

“Oh, yes. You go ahead and enjoy your _freedom_ for the rest of my life. And then, when I am gone, you can enjoy the great freedom of watching this fine rancho that your poor father built up from nothing crumble into the dust because you have no idea of how to handle the responsibility of running it.”

“I think you would be surprised.”

“At the disaster you make of it? Yes, no doubt I would be.” He leaned over and shook one warning finger in Mano’s face. “Do you know, Manolito, on the day I die, I think perhaps instead of going straight to Purgatory, I will become a ghost and come back to haunt you every time you make a bad decision.”

Buck gave a cackling sort of laugh over the exchange. “That’s a awful lotta hauntin’, Don Sebastian.”

“Sí,” he agreed with a sigh. “That is the bad thing, Buck Cannon. My eternal spirit would grow tired from the effort long before my son grows tired of making bad decisions and shirking his responsibilities. No, I shall just resign myself to the reality that this great rancho of mine shall endure only for my lifetime. Perhaps he may find someone worthy who will buy it before he lets it deteriorate too badly. And then he can go off to Europe to live a life of worthless excess.”

“Or perhaps I may stay here and surprise you,” Mano said, goaded into stubborn contradiction.

“That would be too much to hope for, mijito,” his father replied bitterly. 

For some time the three men sat in silence, the harshness of the near-quarrel hanging between them. It was an old, old conversation which had been held many times in many variations.

Don Sebastian was the one to break the silence. He spoke in a musing tone, mostly to himself, though he meant Manolito to hear. “Ah, why does a man even try to carve out an empire if not to see it continue in the hands of his only son? Had I but known the sort of son I would have, I would not have bothered. No doubt my son would have preferred a life as the son of a poor peon.”

If the statement was designed to make Mano feel guilty, it fell rather far from the mark. Instead of apologising, he gave a loud snort of derision and turned a scornful eye on his father. “Poor peon!” he laughed. “Grandpapá was a merchant in Hermosillo! _You_ would have been a merchant in Hermosillo. Very far from this … this luxurious hacienda, but hardly the life of a poor peon.”

“Yes, I would have been a merchant as my father before me, and you would have been a merchant as well. And there is the difference between us, Manolo. If I had stayed in Hermosillo and taken over my father’s business, I would have expanded it and become one of the most prosperous merchants in all of Mexico. Because I had ambition, I had the urge to succeed, to make a better life for myself. You, on the other hand, would still expect me to give you money for women and for tequila every time you ask me. Your grandfather had less than five hundred pesos to give me when I left home. All he had to spare, and I never once asked him for a single centavo more than that. I took those few pesos, and my own intelligence, and I built most of this rancho while I was still a good deal younger than you are.”

Mano sighed. So it was to be this variation on the old theme. “Sí, Papá, I know. When you were my age you were a wealthy and respected man, while I have done nothing. But I’ll have you know that I am a man of property myself now.”

“A man of property!” scoffed Don Sebastian. “Half-owner of a small rancho that you leave John Cannon to run. Oh, yes, that is very impressive. As is the worthless silver mine you bought it for.” He shook his head.

Buck, tired of listening to the argument, decided to intercede on his friend’s behalf. “That ain’t quite fair, now, Don Sebastian. We don’t exactly leave John to run it all the time. We mix the herds together, that’s all. Share graze and water. But Mano and me, we go up there and keep an eye on things. We work it ourselves.”

“When you are not fighting like an old married couple, eh? Oh, yes, I’ve heard the stories even here.”

“Nah, that was just that one time, and it was all his fault, anyway.”

“I can well believe it.”

Manolito made a rather childish face at both of them, which annoyed his father and amused Buck. Turning serious, he told his father, “What Buck says is true, though. We do go up there several times a year to check on things, and we do a great deal of work in between dealing with the comancheros.”

His father was impressed in spite of himself, so naturally he took refuge in sarcasm. “That much work must be truly exhausting. Especially if you must do it as often as several times a year.”

“We enjoy it,” Buck said, and Manolito nodded his agreement.

“I will never understand you. You could work here, in your own home, and learn all you must know to take over the Rancho Montoya one day. You could be a help to me. But this you refuse. You prefer your tiny rancho with the worthless silver mine to all of this which will one day be yours.” 

Mano opened his mouth to argue back, but Buck interrupted before he had a chance to speak. 

“That makes kinda good sense, though, when you think about it. My daddy used to say that a man appreciates what he makes a lot more than what he’s given.”

“I hope you are right, my old friend. Only this is the first time in his life that my son has ever tried to make anything for himself at all.”

“Mebbe he didn’t need to ’fore now.”

Don Sebastian looked at him with sudden interest. He wouldn’t go so far as to admit that there might be grain of truth in his words, but it was an interesting theory. “Tell me more about this father of yours, Buck. Your brother John has never mentioned him to me at all. What kind of a man was he?”

“He was the greatest legend of all time, according to Buck. A great, wise man who knew more about the land and more about the cattle – and more about whiskey – than you and John together will ever know.” 

“Shut up, Mano, you’re drunk,” was Buck’s only response to the teasing. He aimed a good-natured kick at the sole of his friend’s boot. “He ain’t completely wrong, though.”

Don Sebastian ignored their banter. They were like tiresome children much of the time. And like tiresome children, they laughed when he asked, “Was your father honest like John, or did he have a head for business?”

Buck scratched his head as he thought about it. “Well, both, I reckon you could say. See, he was a farmer who wanted to be a rancher. He had five older brothers, and their daddy parcelled out his farm to all of ’em, forty, fifty acres apiece. Hardly enough to make a livin’ out of. Well, Pa got tireda tryin’ after a while, and he went off to fight the British.”

“Was he that old?” Don Sebastian asked, puzzled.

“Huh? Well, he weren’t real young, but—oh! No, not _that_ war. This was back in about ’13 or ’14 or so. Anyway, they sent ’im all over the place, and he ended up guardin’ the western frontier. ’Bout where Kansas and Nebraska is now, but back then it was just wilderness. Just wide open empty space, but he loved it. I mean, he loved it. He always said that’s what put the life back in him, the sight of all that unspoiled land far as the eye could see. And nobody to claim any part of it, yet. Course that’s just what he wanted to do, claim it for hisself.”

“I know that feeling well,” Don Sebastian said softly.

“Couldn’t do it then, though. Not for a long time. But he always had it in the back of his mind. He went on back home to Virginia and married the new schoolmarm. That sure surprised everybody, since not a one of the Cannons could even read his own name printed out, much less sign it. But they got along real good.

“Pa went on farmin’, and Ma went on teachin’. Now, he was like me. He liked to gamble a little bit. They’d get just a little extra money, he’d go off and play cards once, twice a month. Lose a little sometimes, win a little more most of the time. So the two of ’em, they started puttin’ that money aside that he won, and it started to add up real slow. Then her grandmother left ’em some money, and they put that back, too. Not near enough to get ’em out west, but it was enough to get ’em a little ranch.”

“And he made a lot of money with this little ranch of his?” Don Sebastian wanted to know.

Buck shook his head and laughed. “Heh heh. No, I wouldn’t say he ever made a whole lotta money at anything. What he did get he put right back into the land. Same thing John does: pay off a note then buy more land, or improve what he’s got. Then pay off that note, and so on. After about nineteen, twenty years, he sorta had enough to get what he wanted. Bought him a little bit o’ land in Missouri, right up against the western edge, and a bunch in Kansas. But, see, it wan’t Kansas yet. It was what they called un-in-corporated. Dirt cheap, cos there was no law and hardly a soul there but Injuns. And they coulda took that land away from him any time, dependin’ on what the government wanted to do. But my daddy was just that much of a gambler, and like I said, when he gambled he usually won.”

“He sounds like a very interesting man, your father. A man who knew when to relax and when to work hard, no?”

“That’s right. Work hard, play hard, and leave somethin’ behind you when ya die, that’s what he believed in. That’s the way he raised us, too, only John never did get the hang of the play hard part, and there ain’t a whole lotta chance that I’ll be leavin’ much behind me when I go.”

Don Sebastian stood up and stretched. He moved a couple of steps towards the stairs, then stopped and looked back at Buck. “Tell me something, my friend. This sort of life you lead is much like my son’s life of dissolution. Do you think your father would have been proud of you for this?”

Buck and Mano looked at one another. After a pause, Buck said firmly, “Yessir. Oh, he wouldn’t necessarily approve of everythin’ I do, but I was his son. He was always proud of me.”

His message wasn’t lost on Don Sebastian, but the old man chose to ignore it. “I am going to bed now. Tomorrow we shall discuss the price of the cattle at whatever leisurely hour the two of you choose to arise.” With that parting shot, he went upstairs and left them alone.

“Muchas gracias for that, anyway,” Mano said finally. He dragged himself to a sitting position on the floor beside Buck, and poured himself another glass of brandy. Buck held out his glass silently for a refill.

“Buck, do you think you would be a good father?”

“Me? Nah, probably not. Not sure I’d even wanna try. Anyway, I got Blue-Boy. Bein’ a uncle’s enough. How ’bout you?”

Mano shook his head. “I would be a terrible father. Unlike you, I have no good example. There is John, who will never understand his son, and there is my father, who indulges Victoria and despises me. Those are the examples I have.”

“He don’t despise you.” Buck laid a reassuring hand on his friend’s shoulder. “He loves ya.”

“Yes, I know. He does. I suspect even as much as your wonderful father loved you. But he also despises me. And there is nothing I can do about it without changing everything about the man I am. And that, I am not prepared to do. Not now, perhaps not ever. My father will never understand that. And in his way, he is absolutely right about me.”

Buck started to object, but Mano barely heard him, caught up in the kind of middle of the night cynicism that the darkness and the brandy made so seductive. “Oh, not about everything, but what he said about watching everything he built crumble to dust after he’s gone – he’s _right,_ amigo. That’s what I will do, he knows that.”

“Well, so what? It’s his dream, why should you have to give up your life to it? Anyway, mebbe you’ll surprise him. Mebbe you’ll surprise all of us one o’ these days.”

“Maybe. Or maybe I will get lucky and my father will live forever. That way I will never have to prove him right or wrong.” He gave a deep sigh. “Ah, Buck. All these self-made men! No wonder you and I can never measure up to them. It’s because we do not want to, isn’t it?”

“’Spect so. But you know what, Mano? These self-made men we growed up with – your daddy, my daddy, my brother – I don’t think one of ’em ever once had a real good, close friend, do you?” 

He thought it over. “No,” he said finally. “No, I don’t. They were too busy building empires and becoming giants.”

“And they don’t have much fun in life.”

“They do not have any fun! Ha! Do you know, Buck, I think perhaps you and I may have the best of it after all.”


End file.
